They drank occasionally, for the sake of company, or merely for exhilaration. The relish for stimulants was thus acquired, and habits of dissipation formed. They became idle, and of course uneasy. And they continued to drink, partly to gratify taste and partly to quiet conscience. They saw the ruin that was coming upon them, and they made some earnest but ineffectual struggles against it. But the resistance became weaker and weaker--by and by the struggle is ended--they float with the current, and where are they? One has been found by the temperance reformation, a mere wreck in property, character, body, and mind, and reclaimed. Another is dead: his constitution could not bear his continued dissipation. Another died in a fit; another was found by the road-side one cold morning, a stiffened corpse. Another was thrown from his horse, and is a cripple for life, but still can contrive means to pay a daily visit to the dram-shop. Another is a mere vagabond, unprincipled and shameless--wandering from shop to shop, a fit companion for the lowest company, a nuisance to society and a curse to his kindred. Another is in the penitentiary for a crime which he committed in a drunken frolic. Go into the crowded court-house and you may see another; his countenance haggard and ghastly, and his eye wildly rolling in despair. What has he done? One night, after spending all his money for drink, and loitering about till all the shops were closed, he returned to his miserable habitation. He found a few coals on the hearth, and his wife and children sitting by them. He threw one child this way and another that, for he was cold. His wife remonstrated, and withal told him that what little fire there was was none of his providing. With many a horrid oath he declared he would not be scolded after that sort. He would let her know who should govern, and by way of supporting his authority, beat her brains out with the last remaining stick of wood. He did not mean to kill her. Her dying struggles brought him to his senses, and he stood horror-struck. He would give almost any thing that the deed were not done. If that could restore her to life, he would be almost ready to give a pledge never to taste intoxicating liquor again. Now look at the wretchedness of his family. For years he has made very little provision for them; they have lived as they could, half naked and half starved, and not educated at all--with a most wretched example before their eyes. What encouragement had the wife or the children to attempt any thing--to make any exertion? The children are abused and trampled on at home, and they grow up without self-respect, without shame, and without principle. Can any thing good be expected of them? And if they do rise, it must be through a world of difficulty.